


Aftermath

by commander_killjoy



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Grief Sex, Harry helps, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Porn with Feelings, Sara feels things, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 18:18:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10882332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commander_killjoy/pseuds/commander_killjoy
Summary: The events of Habitat 7 have left Sara Ryder's whole world shaken.  She's breaking, and Harry's the only one left to catch her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First work on here, should be interesting. Not nearly enough Harry love over here :c
> 
> This is meant to be read in one sitting, but it's almost 7,000 words so I split it up where I thought best makes sense.
> 
> Also, this might end up part of a longer-running series, but I haven't quite decided yet.

Harry’s still puttering about his newly assigned quarters when the door chimes the arrival of a visitor, odd given how late it is into the night cycle.  He freezes, looking over the small apartment – he hadn’t had much to unpack, and it shows, but the small rooms – really just a cramped bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom – are just barely presentable nonetheless.  Or maybe it’s just that the walls are still _just_ a bit too sterile, everything’s put away a little too neatly.  Harry’s an organized man, but there’s nothing to say this is a home, yet.  No casual clutter of a lived-in space.  He hasn’t had _time_ to really make it his.  They’d just made it to the Nexus earlier that day, after all, and he’s been a bit too busy to tend to his room assignment.

Well, he’s not out to impress whoever it is anyway, he supposes.

Except when the door swishes open, it’s Sara, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in the only nervous tick the young woman will likely ever show, and he’s as self-conscious as a damn schoolboy.  Although, that may have more to do with the fact that he’d all but fled from her while she laid recovering in SAM node, and less with how awkwardly clean his new quarters are.  He really does try to keep the panic and relief that flood his system from crossing his face, but he's certain he fails when the corner of her mouth twitches downward.

He steps aside a little too quickly to let her in, tells her to make herself at home.  He’s stumbling over himself in his need to sooth the hurt he’d no doubt inflicted, but she doesn’t mention it.  If she knows that he’d run from her – which he’s certain she does; there have never been any idiots in the Ryder clan – she leaves it well enough alone.  Maybe she just understands it.  Christ, he hopes she just understands.

How could he have faced her, having lost his friend, her _father_?  As it turns out, he still may not be able to. 

“Nice digs,” she quips, shoving her hands deep in the front pocket of her hoodie.  It should be playful, should hold some sort of undertone that the Ryders have always been infamous for, but it doesn’t.  The jibe falls just this side of flat.

He hates it.

“It’s not bad,” he shrugs noncommittally and props himself up against the counter.  Harry can play at casual.  If that’s what she needs right now, he can oblige.  He can crack wise and chatter on about the weather and biotiball until the day cycle comes back around if that’s what she needs.  “What’s up?”

Everything about her, right down to her ponytail, freezes the moment he asks it, like it’s a loaded gun he’s put to her head.  Like it means more than he’d meant it to.  She’s stock-still in the middle of his quarters for a good forty-five seconds before she so much as _tries_ to answer and that’s really all the response he needs.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” her voice is rough and barely audible, but he catches it and the hitch of her breath with it.

He hates that, too.

But she’s talking about more than just being alone _right now_.  More than not wanting to sleep in her father’s silent quarters aboard the Hyperion.  It’s not that superficial alone that she means.  For as long as Harry’s known her, she’s only had three fears: closed spaces, being trapped, and living out her life alone.  He knows she’s feeling at least two of those things right now, whether or not she’ll admit it, and her established support system has been demolished in the span of a few hours.

Her father is dead, her brother’s in a coma, and leadership is sending her off expecting her to fail spectacularly.  She’d come to Andromeda because of Scott and Alec, so she wouldn’t be alone.  Now both of them are unavailable and no one else has stepped up to the plate.  There’s no one there to catch her, to hold her up and protect her the way she’s always held up everyone else.

She’s only twenty-two, and she’s out here without anyone or anything to hold onto while her world crumbles around her.  The worst of it is she won’t let herself fall with it.  She won’t let herself grieve.  Sara Ryder has always been the strongest of the three Ryders that came to this galaxy – she carried all three of them after Ellen’s death, and she never let anyone see what it had done to her.

There are so many questions in her answer, in the small tremor that runs down her spine, in her refusal to just turn and look at him.

 _I didn’t want to be alone_.

 _Can I stay here?  Am I alone out here?  Will you stay with me?  Can I count on anyone?  Can I count on_ you _?_

 _“Ellen tried to teach them they don’t_ need _to rely on anyone; I taught them that they_ can’t _,”_ Alec had told him once, after a too-late night and too many drinks.  He understands what his friend had meant so much better now.

He almost wishes he didn’t.

Harry’s behind her, pressed against her back with his arms tight around her before he even registers what he’s doing, but she doesn’t pull away.  She melts into his hold, her knees all but giving out from under her.  Someone needs to be there for her, to hold her, _protect her_.  He’s startled but not surprised to find just how much he wants to be that person.

After all, she’s here now, isn’t she?  She’s come to him; she’s let him see this, see under that mask, behind the walls she’s built up over her short life.

“The team and I are leaving tomorrow,” she whispers, clutching the arm around her middle like a lifeline.

“Then stay here tonight,” he’s quick enough to answer, voice low as if talking to a wounded animal – if she notices it, she doesn’t say anything.  “I’ll be right here with you,” and he can only hope that she realizes he means for far longer than just this one night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it starts getting NSFW.

She turns in his arms, nuzzles her face into his neck, and hooks her arms up under and around his shoulders.  Sara’s still shaking, hanging onto him like she needs him to keep herself grounded.  He’s more than happy to be that anchor, happy to hold her close.  Pet her hair and tell her everything’s going to be alright.  He’ll be that buffer she’s looking for, the safe place to fall apart and hide that she needs.

“Hush, now,” he whispers into her hair, rubs her back.  “It’s going to be okay, Sara.”

She nods against his shoulder, presses her mouth there for a lingering moment – either hiding her face or leaving a kiss, he’s not sure and tries not to think too long on it.  When she pulls away, she looks heartbreakingly exhausted.

“Let’s get you into bed,” he soothes, tucks her bangs behind her ear.  Again, she only nods, so he slowly, bodily backs her into his cramped, little bedroom with his hands on her hips.  She’s damn near unresponsive when he finally stops them, so he slips his hands up under her sweatshirt to pull it up over her head.

“Want to borrow a t-shirt?”  He flings the hoodie into the corner of them room, landing in an empty footlocker.

Sara just nods again and raises her hands over her head.  It can’t lead anywhere good, him stripping her down here in his bedroom with her looking up at him like that.  His eyes flick down to her lips for a split second before he catches himself.  Nowhere good, indeed.  Still, she’s tired and beat down and he’s never had much willpower when it comes to denying her, so he indulges.  And if his touch is just a little too familiar and lingers just too long over her ribcage, neither of them says anything.

In fact, neither of them says anything for a long while after that.  His hands cup her sides, thumbs lightly sweeping over her skin.  He tries for comforting but by the small shiver that runs down her spine, that’s not what he accomplishes.  Small hands smooth up from his belly to his chest, fist into his shirt.

“What about you?”  She whispers, seemingly uncaring that she’s half-naked with a white-knuckle grip on him.  Her voice is a bit stronger, now, but he knows what she’s doing.  “How are you holding up?”  Her palms smooth the wrinkles now left in his shirt while she tries to smooth the exhaustion off her face - neither attempt is all that successful.

“Sara,” it’s stern but warm as he draws her in closer.  “Stop.  You don’t need to take care of me.”  Knuckles brush across her jaw.  “Let someone take care of _you_ for once.”

Her lips are on his in less than a second.  The first thing that crosses his mind is that she tastes exactly as sweet as he’d thought she might – like that vanilla-mint gum she chews like an addict.  The second is that he’s going straight to hell for enjoying this as much as he is.  That he should pull away and nip this is bud isn’t even the fourth thought in his head; it’s somewhere around six or seven, after how soft she is and before wondering whether that bra has a front or back clasp.

He turns his head away, breaking the kiss with more than a little disappointment settling in his belly.

“ _Sara_ ,” oh and that’s not going to help his case at _all_ , breathing her name like a goddamn prayer.

“I – I’m sorry,” she’s stammering, faltering, but she’s not moving away.  “I just...  I need –” her bottom lip finds its way between her teeth hard enough to hurt.  “I need to _feel_ , Harry,” she sniffs back tears that she won’t let fall.  “Feel something, _anything_ ,” her hands clench in his shirt again, tighter this time.  “

“Take care of me tonight, _please_.”

He knows what she means, knows the feeling.  He's a doctor; of _course,_ he knows how death breeds an incessant need for contact.  In his field, one learns to combat it on one's own, how to find comfort in something other than a bottle or someone else's bed.  Harry's seen two wars as a field medic, seen some horrific injuries, and he's seen some miracles.  He's drowned guilt in cheap whiskey, and he's celebrated life with expensive asari wine.  He's fallen into bed with some of his best lovers after saving someone's son, daughter, mother, husband - and he's fallen into bed with some people he shouldn't have after losing a friend.

Some of his best medical breakthroughs have been made because of grief - along with some of his worst social mistakes.

He pulls back enough to look over her face, _really_ look at her.  She’s tired – the kind of tired that seeps deep into the bones and knocks a person flat on their ass.  The wariness of a woman who's seen too much too quickly.  The exhaustion of crushed dreams and hard-hitting reality.  Those wide blue eyes have lost their shine, the spark of playfulness replaced by welling tears.  This girl...  This girl who has never let anyone see her crumble, who has held everyone at a distance while holding them up, who, as a rule, never cries in public, is letting him see her break.  Is begging him to _let_ her break in his arms.  He’s afraid she won’t grieve if he doesn’t help her.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as he ducks down and catches her lips again.

“You’re going to regret this,” he murmurs against her, grip loosening.  It’s his last real argument against this because, really, even if he can practically feel Alec doing somersaults in his grave, how can he say no to her?  Especially when she’s looking so _defeated_.

“ _Never_ ,” she breathes back, presses herself tight against him.

It feels like an admission of something else, but he’s just not ready to confront that just yet, so when she tips her head to the side and parts her lips against his, he gives in.  He _always_ gives in to her.

Harry’s not sure when she let her hair out of her ponytail, but he’s not complaining when he tangles his hand into those soft tresses.  He’s gentle enough with his touches not to be forceful but firm enough that she follows his lead without hesitation.  Her hands scramble to get up under his shirt, to find purchase on his shoulders to hoist herself up, but he has every intention of taking his time on her.  He’s only going to get this one chance, and he’s damn well going to do it _right_.  Make it count.

He chuckles when she whimpers into his mouth and takes mercy on her by letting his hands finally wander.  Down her back, up her sides, cups her breasts through her black bra.  With a soft hum of approval, she pulls back just enough to let his hands stay where they were.  She still wants under his shirt, wants to feel him, but he’d told her he’s going to take care of her.

His lips trail along her jaw, down her neck and along her collarbone.  She sighs, fingers finally letting go of his shirt to thread into his hair.  But he doesn’t give her exactly what she wants.  He bypasses her breasts, instead he explores, crouching low and ignoring the protests of his knees.  She’s got a light smattering of minor scars over her skin, a dusting of freckles over her shoulders.  A wonderful little birthmark on her ribcage, halfway covered by the band of her bra.

He straightens again and guides her backward toward the bed.  Sara goes to drop, but he catches her by the waistband first to undo the button and zip of her trousers.  _Then_ he gently pushes her onto the mattress – she gets the hint easily enough and slips out of her pants as she falls.  With a small smile, he helps her out and tosses the garment to the side.  She crawls backward until she gets to his pillows, even goes so far as to pull back the brand new comforter and settle down into the sheets.

His knees hit the bed but he doesn’t join her just yet.  Instead, he just _looks_ at her because, _Christ_ , it’d be criminal not to get a good look at her while he has the chance.  He’s not an idiot; he knows the chances of getting her back in his bed half-naked and begging are astronomically small.  It’s when she blushes cherry red and tries to scramble for some sort of cover that it _really_ hits him how much younger she is, how much more experienced _he_ is.  He’s got about two decades on her, and it’s showing in her reactions to him.

A hand cups the side of her neck, fingertips ghosting from there downward along her collarbone, between her breasts.  He keeps the touch light enough to be teasing, but firm enough that she’ll know he’s not changing his mind on this.  Her bottom lip finds its way between her teeth again, staring up at him with wide, slightly fearful eyes like she’s got no idea that he’s been dreaming about this for longer than he should admit.

“Sara,” he smiles as fondly down at her as he can, tries to show everything he feels for her without actually revealing too much.  He wants her to know he cares, he’s not sure this is the time for her to find out just _how much_.

He knows she’s not a virgin – a bit of information he’d choked at receiving – so something else is bothering her.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” he assures, crawling up over her to kiss her sweetly.  “Just say the word,” he trails his lips down along her jaw – a kiss per word, “no judgments, no questions.”

“Don’t stop.  Don’t ever stop,” she all but pleads, burying her hand in his hair.  “ _Please_.”

“Shhh,” he hums against her throat as he finally settles between her thighs, “I’m here.  Right here.”

His hands slide underneath her, deft fingers unhooking her bra.  She’s the one who yanks it out from between them and throws it somewhere across the room.  Then her hands are back under his shirt, trying to shove it off him _again_ , and as much as he’s _aching_ to feel her skin on skin, he won’t let this turn frenzied. So, naturally, he pins her hands to bed with one of his and a half-hearted admonishment on his face.

“I told you to let me take care of you,” he reprimands her with a kiss.  “Think you can just lay still for once in your life?”  The corner of his mouth twitches upward in a smirk as his other hand smooths up and down her side.

She actually _whines_ but settles further into the sheets.  He takes it as the acquiescence it is.

“That’s a good girl.”

He lets her go in favor of mapping every inch of exposed skin he can find.  True to her silent word, she just grips his pillow, turns her face into it.  She inhales fairly deeply – based on how her chest expands – but makes a small, barely audible sound of disappointment.  Lifting his head from her chest, he quirks a brow, notes that her face is still nuzzled into his pillowcase.  He nudges her in question, but she just shakes her head – he has a feeling he knows, anyway, but he drops it, partly because she doesn’t want to talk about it, mostly because _he_ doesn’t want to think about it.

So he goes back to tracing every scar he’d found earlier, paid special attention to that birthmark and her pulse point, both seem especially sensitive – and if he has his own motive for focusing on her heartbeat, she’s gracious enough not to ask.  Her skin is his playground tonight, and he’s going to make sure he never forgets the scent of her, the taste of her, the way her breasts fill his palms so damn _perfectly_ , the dip of her hipbones.

Sara’s wriggling before he even makes it to catching her nipple between his lips, and he can’t help but chuckle around the already-peaked bud.  She doesn’t try to take any sort of control this time, but she can’t stop herself from clinging to him, apparently – anywhere from the back of his head to his shoulders to around his waist.  Harry wouldn’t have minded, but her arms are trembling and she’s not just holding onto him because of what he’s doing to her, but because she’s falling apart.  He might not be able to hold her together, but he can catch the pieces.

Her leg bends up and over his hip as his hand strokes her bare skin from thigh to knee, silently urging the movement.  She rolls her hips up to meet his – likely testing his resolve to keep control.  She’s a woman of control, after all, always has been, but he knows her well enough to know that she just needs to let go of it sometimes.  Still, he indulges, slowly rocks his growing interesting into her.

“Harry?”  She whispers, voice rough and hitched as she arches into him.

“Hm?”  He hums, kissing and nipping his way down her body.

“I want...  Can I...?”  Her fingers pluck at his shirt, her lip between her teeth.

“Can you what?”  Harry knows exactly what she’s asking for, but he wants to make her say it.  Wants her to admit what she’s looking for, what she needs from him.

“Take it off?”  Her flush deepens and he’d chuckle if she didn’t seem so uncertain.

Instead, he slides the fabric over his head, and her hands are on him in an instant, smoothing up his chest then lightly scratching down his back.  His lips catch hers in a searing kiss, deeper, heavier than before, his arm sliding under her waist to pull her hips up against his own.  She moans into the kiss when she presses against him, chest to chest, skin to skin.

Harry manages to disengage enough to move down her body.  As he hooks her legs over his shoulders, he flicks his eyes to meet hers – now even wider than usual.  And that’s all the warning he gives before dragging the flat of his tongue of her still-clothed center.  It takes everything in him not to audibly groan when he tastes her through the black fabric – she’s already starting to soak through it.  She _jerks_ , a hand tangling in his hair.  Barely more than a long lick from slit to clit over the cotton of Initiative-issue underwear, and she’s already completely tense.

He moves away again, teasing kisses and nips along the inside of her thighs.  And she’s wriggling again, a soft whimper falling from her lips.  She’s getting frustrated by the sounds of it, but he doesn’t let up, not quite yet.  She’s damn near begging him by the time he finds what quickly becomes his second favorite spot on her body: an unexpectedly and particularly sensitive spot just below and to the right of her navel.  His teeth sink into her sink deep enough to leave an impressive mark.  For a moment, he’s worried he’s pushed a limit with the gasp she lets out, but when he flicks his gaze up to her face, there’s only pleasure there – eyes squeezed shut, lip trembling between her teeth.  Still, he soothes the bite with his tongue before sucking on the spot.  Nice and hard and long, to leave a dark mark – one that would last.

She may have a few words about that when she finds it later, but right now, she’s enjoying to attention.  He’ll take that victory.

Still staining her skin with his mark, he hooks his fingers into the waistband of her panties and slowly peels them from her.  It does take a bit of maneuvering, but he manages to get the underwear off of her without lifting away.  After one last drag of his tongue across the bruise, he dives back into the apex of her thighs, mouth latching onto her clit without preamble.

Sara doesn’t even _try_ to muffle her cry or stop her hips from bucking, and, really, he’s glad for it.  It _does_ things to him to hear it, to know that he can do this to her.  So he sets to coaxing has many of those delightful sounds from her as he possibly can.  One arm wraps around her hips, pulling her further into his mouth and holding her still.  She struggles half-heartedly against the hold, squirming, trying to ride his tongue, but he just chuckles against her clit.  When his teeth graze over the bud, she nearly flies off the bed but for his grip on her.  Her ankles lock together at his back; her hands try for purchase on his shoulders rather than his hair and are likely the only things that keep her thighs from squeezing around his head.  Really, he’s more bothered by the fact that she has enough awareness to worry about that at the moment.

So he dives in deeper, delves his tongue into her.  And he’s instantly addicted.  He’s fairly certain she’s already ruined him and he hasn’t even been inside her yet.  It’s the way she tastes, the way her back arches up off the bed in taut bow, the way her nails dig little half-moons into his shoulders then rake up into his hair in an attempt to push him further into her, the way she pants and pleads and _begs_ him not to stop.  Harry’s had his share of women, and he’s always been an attentive lover, but she’s most sensitive partner he’s ever had the pleasure of having.  She’s certainly the most responsive.  Knowing what he does about her, he’d expected her to be quiet, reserved, to be biting the inside of her cheek just to hush herself.  But she makes the most _delicious_ little whimpers whenever he backs off or slows down, drags out a low, keening moan when he hits a particularly sensitive spot.  She’s a live-wire, twitching and jerking, but not enough that he can’t hold her steady.

He tries not to take it hard that she doesn’t say his name anymore, that she’s got her eyes squeezed shut and won’t look at him.  There’s a tightening in his chest when that annoying, rational part of his brain reminds him that she’s only here for contact, that there’s someone else she’s thinking of right now.  Everything in him wants to make her forget whoever that is, wants her to be just as ruined by this as he is.  It’s a rather terrifying feeling, really.  He’s too old for her, and he’s known her too long...  It’s so _wrong_ on so many levels, but _damn_ _it_ he wants this to be more than it is.

He switches tactics, licking a long, broad strip up her center back to that bundle of nerves, swollen and throbbing and aching for him.  His head moves back just enough to watch his finger sink easily into her to the knuckle.  He’d expected her to be tight but not this much so.  She squirms a bit uncomfortably when he eases a second into her, able to take it without pain but she’ll need to get used to it.

“ _Christ_ ,” he breathes against her skin, causing gooseflesh to follow the gentle shudder that runs up her body.  He knows it’ll likely just embarrass her, but he can’t _help_ it.  She’s drenched and tight, and if he didn’t have the self-restraint he does, he’d be balls-deep in her right now.

Harry waits, takes a moment to calm himself.  Grinds down once, twice into the sheets just to ease a bit of his own need before he keeps on.

When he’s settled enough not to rush her, he settles back into his pace.  Working her clit with his tongue as his fingers carefully stretch her.  It’s not long before he’s got her trying to buck into him again.  He releases his hold on her waist, but pulls his head away, lets her ride his fingers as she pleases and kisses a trail back up to her shoulder.

He hesitates before kissing her, but she accepts gladly, pulling him in impossibly closer.  His fingers crook inside her, change their angle _just_ so, and she’s pulling away from the kiss to throw her head back when he hits that spot in her.  He takes the opportunity to just _watch_ her come undone.  Her chest is heaving, there’s a sheen of sweat over her.  She’s clutching the arm he’s using to support his weight, her legs bent up and spread for him.  She _wants_ to kiss him again, but she’s too out of breath so she just holds him close even that their lips brush.  He’s happy enough to let his forehead rest on hers as his fingers speed up.

Her hips rise up off the bed, her head pushed back into the pillow, and she goes completely still as she reaches her climax.  He slows his ministrations but doesn’t stop, letting her ride it out while she clings to him.

When she comes back done, she looks up at him in wonder.  He has the wherewithal not to look _too_ smug as he smiles down at her, withdrawing his fingers from her and wiping them off on the sheet.  Newly free hand now cupping her base of her skull, he kisses her, nice and slow but still deep, hungry.

“We can stop right now,” he murmurs even as he maneuvers out of his trousers and briefs, catching her half-lidded eyes with his own.  Her pupils are blown wide, still, the blue around them barely a sliver.   His thumb sweeps gently over her cheekbone when her gaze flicks down to his own throbbing need.  “You don’t owe me anything, Sara.”

She closes the distance between them, rewards him with a sweet but decidedly needy kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

“ _Harry_ ,” the name comes like a whispered prayer across his lips, and he can’t help but grind against her thigh at the sound of it.  _Finally_.  “I need you,” there’s more to that, a meaning she’s trying to distract him from as her hand smoothes down his lean chest.  “Inside me,” she adds after just too long a pause; he knows it’s not exactly what she means, but he refuses to acknowledge it – or the swelling deep in his chest at the notion.

Harry moves to settle fully in the cradle of her thighs up on his knees.  Her hands don’t seem to know what to do with themselves, now that he’s no longer within reach, so she shoves them under the pillow on either side of her head.  She’s stretched out beneath him, looking up at him like he’s holding her entire world in the palm of his hand, like he could hold her together or utterly break her apart in a single breath.  He’s not quite sure how to feel about that.  Not sure if this is out of trust or if he’s taking advantage.  Either way it knocks the wind out of him, and he has to look away.

He grips himself in one hand, poising the head of his neglected but leaking member at her entrance, but he doesn’t move to enter her just yet.  The palm of his other hand smoothes flatly down her body from her shoulder down her collarbone, between her breasts, over the flat, muscled plane of her belly to her hip.  Her body arches to follow the touch, shifting a bit and widening the spread of her legs in invitation.

Slowly, _achingly_ slowly, he sinks into her, and curses the entire time.  She fits him like a goddamn glove, squeezing and fluttering around him in all the right places, dragging him deeper, _deeper_.  He’d expected it to a certain extent – she’s a small, young woman, he is neither a small nor a young man; he _knew_ she’d be tight.  He just wasn’t ready to fit inside her like a fucking puzzle piece.

When he pauses, it’s as much give him time to compose himself as it is to let her adjust to him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” his hands on her hips are bruising, he knows, but if she minds, she doesn’t say so, and he’s glad for it.  He needs the anchor because he could so easily lose himself in her.  Oh, how easy it’d be to just let go and _drown_ in her.  To loop his arms around her and bring her in close, to kiss her senseless and pretend this is real, that it’s not just a reaction to their shared grief.

His head is bowed, eyes closed, even when he pulls her hips into his lap to give him better leverage.  If he drops down over her, he’ll be lost for good, so he’ll take her like this.  Close enough not to be cold, far enough to remind him what this is.

At least, that’s the plan until he settles and meets her gaze to find tears making their way toward his pillow.

“Sara?”  He panics.  He’ll never forgive himself if he’s hurt her, if she’s changed her mind before he’d given her a chance to say so.

But she shakes her head.  Reaches for him.

Oh.  _Shit_.

Without another word and before he can remind himself that he’s risking too much in doing so, he takes the offered hand and pulls her up until she’s sitting in his lap.  The shift forces him deeper into her, and he has to grit his teeth to keep from bucking up further.  Her arms hook up under his arms, hands clutching at his shoulders.  He moves then, a slow, experimental roll of his hips that has her gasping and burying her face in the side of his neck.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers into her hair as he begins to rock into her, a slow, steady pace.  “You’re safe.  You’re not alone.”

She shudders, muffles a sob by nipping his shoulder.  But she’s matching his movements, needing the contact, the connection.  Needs the proof that he’s here, that she still has something in this disappointment of a galaxy.  The hold he has on her has to be nearly suffocating, but she just holds on tighter the more he moves.

One arm looped around her waist to guide her hips as they rock together, the other hand alternates between combing through her hair and lightly scratching along the curve of her spine.  He continues to whisper to her, the sweet little nothings she wants to hear.  They’re not _really_ nothing when he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t mean them, but a man is entitled to his private pains.  With his words and his body, he reminds her that he’s here, that she hasn’t lost everything.  That there’s so much to go on for; that even as she falls apart, he’ll hold her together.  Reminds her that he’ll pick up whatever pieces of herself that she drops, tuck them away, help her put herself back together.  That she isn’t alone, now or ever.  That she _always_ has him.

The tears don’t stop, nor does the shaking, but her breathing changes, a soft moan added to her silent sobs.  It’s overwhelming her, he knows, but he’s promised not to let go, and he won’t.  Sara nips at his neck to muffle some of her sounds then harder when she just can’t keep quiet.  Soft lips sooth the mark, but she’s back at it, sinking her teeth in, when he shifts her weight and finds her sweet spot. 

She’s been trying to match his movements, but she’s desperate and hurting and caught someone between needing his touch and curling in on herself to cry.  He doesn’t mind doing most of the work, doesn’t mind using his hold on her to manhandle her up and down his length all the while bucking up into her.  If he was being honest, he’d admit that it helped sooth his own grief, helped alleviate that feeling of utter _uselessness_ that had settled in his gut sine Habitat 7.  Harry isn’t a man that’s used to being helpless – he knows how to lose a hand or two, how to roll with punches, but his friend’s life had been on the line and he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing.  It should be enough that he and Lexi had managed to save Sara, but it isn’t.

He couldn’t save her father, and now she’s alone.

Harry jostles the shoulder under her forehead gently, urges her to lift her head and look at him.  He almost regrets it when she obeys.  Her pupils are blow wide but her eyes are red-rimmed, there’s a delightful flush sweeping across her skin but it only highlights the tear-stains along her cheeks.  Her lip is caught between her teeth, but whether it’s to muffle cries of pleasure or hurt, her can’t tell.  She’s a wreck, shaking in his hold and _breaking_.

“Don’t let go,” she whispers, low and rough, a fresh flood welling in her eyes.  “Please, Harry.  Don’t –”

He cups her face then the back of her head and kisses her, hard but sweet.

“ _Never_ ,” he breathes against her lips and shifts.  Pushing her back in the mattress, he etches that promise into her body with his own.  It’s too late, he realizes.  He’s been lost in her from the beginning.  “I’ve got you.  I’m not going anywhere.”

Her legs coming up to lock around him, she tries to hide herself in him again, but he doesn’t let her.  He needs to _see_ her.  Small hands are back to not knowing what to do with themselves, scratching down his back when he speeds his pace, smoothing up his chest when he kisses her again, hooking around her shoulders when he drops his forehead to hers and loses his rhythm entirely.

She sobs his name as she tightens around him, clinging desperately to him as she comes undone.  He’s right behind her over the edge, his climax hitting him like a bloody freighter to the chest and knocking the wind out of him.  He doesn’t even have time to _think_ that he should pull out first before he’s spilling _deep_ inside of her.

With a grunt and a curse, he manages to roll off her and to the side.  Flat on his back, he blindly finds her hand and brings it to his chest.  But he doesn’t look at her, not yet.  Can’t face up to the mess he’s made of her, the bruises he’s left and his seed slowly leaking from her.

“Harry?”  Her voice is quiet, anxious.

He hums and lolls his head to look at her.

“Are we...  Are we okay?”  She’s _scared_ , he realizes, and it clenches his chest.

“Of course we are,” he breathes, pulling her into his still-heaving chest and carding his fingers through her hair.  “I told you, Sara, I’m not going anywhere.”  He kisses the top of her head and holds her closer, tighter, as she nuzzles into him.

“I –” She cuts herself off, and he lets her.  He’s not sure what she wants to say, but has an idea, and he knows better than to let her finish that thought.  “Thank you,” she says instead, tucking herself up against his side.

She shouldn’t be thanking him at all, he thinks, and come morning she’ll regret all of this, but right now, he’s content to hold her like she won’t.  To bring the blanket up over them both and trail his fingertips along the curve of her spine until she falls asleep as if he won’t wake up to an awkward, stammered apology and a hurried gathering of clothes.  He can pretend, for now, that this won’t end terribly, that he’ll be able to hold her until morning and kiss her awake as a lover might.

“Get some sleep, Sara,” he tries not to sound dismissive, just trying to ease her into the sleep he knows she’s fighting.

She presses a kiss to his pulse point, settles into his hold like she’s meant to be there.  It’s too comfortable; he should roll over, feign discomfort or something to do before he falls asleep, but the afterglow has him just as boneless as she is next to him.  And, as a continuation of the lapse in judgment that this entire night has been, he can’t find it in him to do the right thing and turn away.  He does the opposite, instead, and brings her in impossibly closer and tucks her up as tight against him as he can.

A light tapping on his chin brings him back to reality, from the fantasy of round two in the morning, slow and loving and fueled by more than grief.  Back to now from the dread that’s filling his chest because he _knows_ this will be gone in the morning.  She doesn’t stop until he’s looking down at her, and something must show in his face – a shadow in his eye, a slight downturn of his lips – because she shifts anxiously upward.

She kisses the doubt right out of him, slow and languid, like a lazy Sunday morning with nowhere to be.

He falls into that kiss, hands firm but gentle in their hold on her.  Lets himself melt away in her very being.  Lets everything _else_ melt away from this moment – the fear, the dread, the grief.  It’s just the two of them, now, in this bed, in this brand new galaxy so far away from everything they have ever known.  The burdens of their shared grief and his guilt and her fear have no place here; they’re unwelcome guests in the wake of this connection.  He won’t let them take away from whatever is blossoming in his chest – even as he denies it altogether.

_Don’t let go._

_Don’t regret this._

There are words he’d say, were he brave enough, were the circumstances different.  Words that lodge in his throat and swell in his chest.  But he can’t; he won’t leave her with another burden on shoulders already carrying the lives of thousands.  So he just keeps her tucked close and pets her hair until her breath fanning across his skin evens out.

It’s the best and the worst night’s sleep he’s ever had – including the times in the arms of true lovers and those in the battlefield.

He wakes to an empty bed, barely still holding the warmth of another body, and his clothes politely folded on a chair.


End file.
